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Spring 2005 |
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Cover Story
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Times Ten: Iowa State, tech transfer, and our land-grant peers Although incomplete reporting and differing administrative structures don’t permit direct comparison of tech transfer and business startups at Iowa State with peer institutions in the “Land Grant 10,” an informal review of other schools’ efforts shows areas where Iowa State excels, and others where we and the state of Iowa might seek opportunities to improve. Iowa State has the smallest population base of the ten schools by far: Iowa’s population is less than 60% of Arizona, the next smallest, and only 14% of Texas, the largest. Yet Iowa State compares favorably with its larger peers in startups generated by licensing university technologies, averaging 4 or 5 per year over the past 10 years—virtually the same as Purdue and Ohio State and surpassing Wisconsin and North Carolina State. Likewise, in Iowans employed as a result of university-generated startups we’re competitive with our peers: 1,400 Iowans work for 120 companies and research centers affiliated with ISU, about twice the ratio of jobs to state population of North Carolina State and four times that of Wisconsin. With regard to fees earned for the university by licensing technologies, Iowa State falls generally in the middle of the pack—again, a good showing, given the size of the school and the state. Where we and Iowa can clearly do better is in developing partnerships to leverage Iowa State technologies for the purpose of general economic development, especially with regard to venture capital funding. Thanks in part to the scientific, economic, and governmental synergies of the Research Triangle, almost every startup at North Carolina State is a result of cooperation among university offices, state agencies, and a ready pool of venture capitalists and other business leaders. Ohio State’s success can likewise be attributed to the aggressive fostering of public-private partnerships. “We collaborate quite readily with the Business Technology Center, a state-run incubator,” says Dr. William Vaughan of Ohio State’s Office for Technology Licensing. “Additionally, we have good relations with local and state venture capitalists and angel investors, various chambers, other research entities and state and local government. Our start-up activities couldn’t go on unless these entities helped us out.” Schools included in the review Iowa State University of Arizona University of Illinois-Urbana Michigan State University of Minnesota North Carolina State Ohio State Purdue Texas A&M University of Wisconsin-Madison |
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